2022 in Games Industry - Our Predictions
Premieres of hits and complications with organization of industry events and game development. Uncharted in cinemas and a constant shortage of GPUs. 2022 in the game industry will be full of familiar problems and pleasant surprises.
Table of Contents
- 2022 in Games Industry - Our Predictions
- A year without major releases from Electronic Arts, Avatar being the dark horse of Ubisoft?
- RED Cyberpunk (not dead) Redemption
- PC hardware – once it was cheap
- Changing conditions in gavedev?
RED Cyberpunk (not dead) Redemption
In addition to new games, many players are also waiting for the release of an older game in its improved version, on new generation consoles. This is, of course, Cyberpunk 2077, which exceeded the possibilities of last-gen consoles with sheer scale, while not offering any spectacular improvements on the new gen, save for a bit more fluidity. According to November announcements of CDPR's CEO, such a version should appear by the end of March 2022.
Recently, the media rumored about the planned Samurai Edition, with many improvements in addition to the next-gene patch and free DLCs. The studio denied these reports very quickly, but in a way, that clearly doesn't mean that one of these leaks will not be validated in update 1.5. More than a year after the premiere, it is probably high time for us to see Cyberpunk 2077 in the state it should have brought from the very beginning. And for CDPR, this is an opportunity to redeem sins and show their good side again – one that gave us The Witcher 3.
Inflation = expensive games
The release of new generation of consoles was an excuse for some publishers to raise prices from $60 (the standard over the last 15 years) to $70. This obviously impacted game prices around the globe. Recently, Epic Games Store charged a similar price for the PC version of Final Fantasy VII remake, and unfortunately it is most likely the harbinger of a price increase for PC games as well.
Again, almost the entire world is in the midst of a large inflation. In the United States, it is at its highest in 40 years. It's also worth mentioning the recent case of Days Gone – a title that sold several million copies, which was still not a satisfactory result for the Sony publisher. Probably due to the fact that most (according to unofficial data) of these copies were sold at various sales. It should be expected that publishers will want to maximize profits in the first weeks after the premiere with a slightly higher price.
Fortunately, there are also the sales. It's usually enough to wait a few weeks after the release of a given game, as games today are very quickly becoming discounted. Of course, this doesn't apply to all publishers (Activision!), The prices after a temporary reduction can also be slightly higher than before, but with the increasingly popular subscriptions, there's plenty of ways to avoid paying the full price.
Spartacus Game Pass – not "if," but "when" is Sony's subscription coming
Microsoft's offensive continues. The Redmond company offers a cheap subscription with hundreds of good titles, every month adds new, great productions small and large, has managed to merge the libraries of Electronic Arts and Bethesda, with Ubisoft games joining in a moment. Msoft also barred Sony from such potential hits as S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 and Starfield. What's in the PlayStation arsenal?
Last year, Sony clearly lost the edge. The only answer is Gran Turismo 7, as well as God of War and Horizon sequels. Is this enough? Not necessarily, especially since the new GoW and Horizon will probably also arrive on PC in some time. Sony is unlikely to have a choice and will have to introduce its version of the Game Pass subscription, especially since it already has a cloud gaming service and a whole lot of "classics" that could potentially be made available there as an addition to newer and future games.
These predictions are supported by reports from Bloomberg, which some time ago spoke of a secret Sony project called "Spartacus." It's supposed to combine existing PlayStation Plus subscriptions for a monthly package of free games and cloud gaming with PlayStation Now. According to leaks, the new Sony service is expected to launch this spring. The mystery is not only the price of the service, but also its availability, as PS Now is still officially absent in many countries. A subscription that would provide access to, for example, the latest Gran Turismo or God of War along with a large collection of older titles, could, however, be the right answer to the ever-larger Xbox Game Pass.
